


Transformation

by alienweirdo



Category: Otherfaith mythology
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4349267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienweirdo/pseuds/alienweirdo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the Darren, combined divinity of the Dierne and the Clarene, travels between realms and learns about the human world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the Hermit

When he stretched his arms toward the sky, feathers burst forth from his pores: jet black shining feathers that put the night sky to shame. Shifting his raven wings, the Darren took flight. It was no ordinary mode of transportation, but a mystical one. Flying as a bird was how the Darren traveled between realms. He left the bright world where he had been born of star-fall and entered a world where the people worshipped a single star that lit their world like a great flame. the Darren's star-heart smoldered in his chest, sublimely bright, and was quite unlike the larger Sun that shone down upon the human world. How different the humans were from fairies--they lacked horns, feathers, wings, claws, fur, fins, and they had no idea.

the Darren's vision shifted and morphed, changing until he found himself in the human world. It looked like the West in some ways, but not in  _other_ ways, and it certainly didn't  _feel_ like the West. He hid himself in the forest, deep in its heart where only hermits, mystics, and wild beasts entered. the Darren unfolded his black wings and the feathers fell to the forest floor and crumbled into embers. The god took on a human-like form, but he kept his ivory antlers on his head and his eyes that burned as red as lava. It was by these features that the humans the Darren had come to visit would recognize his divinity.

The god walked to a shelter in the woods made of branches, mud, and leaves. He let the bright light of Little Sun shine a little bit, and allowed a piece of his divine energy to brighten the air around the lean-to. A frightened, bewildered face emerged from the shelter and a human stumbled out into the light.

 

"For-Forgive me, I didn't know--" the hermit began, but the Darren silenced him with a gesture. 

"What have you learned, living alone?" asked the Darren.

"Your grace, I have learned how hard it is to be among man, and how maddening it is to be without him."

the Darren nodded at these words.

"And what have you learned about peace?" asked the Darren.

"Your grace, I have learned that there is no peace without war, not even in the human soul."

And the Darren was unhappy. Because he forever sought the way to end suffering, but found that the more he pushed himself to be a god of peace, the more he was a god of justice. He thought of the lives he had taken--all justified by his divinity and by the Ophelene's--and he felt deeply troubled that there was no true answer. Truth, it was what he always dreamed of; it was what Little Sun was made of. And so he left the hermit and turned to Little Sun.

They floated together within the Darren's heart. It was a realm of bright light that lived within him. The rest of the Darren's heart was full of lava in the place of blood, but its core pulsed with Little Sun's light.


	2. Little Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Darren conferences with his aspect, Little Sun (representation of Truth and the star the Darren was created from).

"Truth*, you shine with a light unseen, but felt, for none can look upon you without slipping into blindness," said the Darren. Little Sun spun and pulsed with energy. The heart of the Darren was the soul of the star from which he had fallen. Oh, what a fall it was. To think it would lead along all those footsteps to where he was now? Who could have guessed? "Holy Truth*, tell me: what is your knowledge and wisdom?" the Darren asked.

"Oh Holy Wanderer, I am the compass ever pointing true," said Little Sun, and the Darren realized that within the blinding light of the star-heart, he had inherited the compass of his Holy Mother. What, then, did he inherit from his other parent, the boy-god of dreams, mirrors, and shadows? There was the rich well of fierce lava in his belly, alight by star-fire. His molten form was in constant motion, and yet the Darren--his compass ever true--brought stability to a bright heart and a steady hand to his mind.

He was a mix of contradictions. And yet here he was, questioning his very heart--surely there was something within him, perhaps the thing that kept him questioning, that was pure. Some soul perhaps. But all the Darren knew was Little Sun, Truth*, the Darrenesque, Doubt*, and the other fragments of his self. They were a bunch of pieces, each torn in a different direction. How could he guess at knowledge and stability when he was a cursed fragment, energies divine and otherwise mixing together in a chaotic jumble.

the Darren tried to understand. And maybe that was his weakness. 

 


	3. Earthbound Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Darren visits a human city.

Spinning spinning spinning, pulsing, beating, shivering... the Darren awakened to his reality shaking violently. He reached for his bird form, and as the ink black feathers erupted from his skin, the chaos around him began to realign itself. the Darren flapped his wings and soared through the void, a space of terrible darkness and light which consumed him when the Darren was lost in doubt.

It was a puddle on the ground that caught his attention. The spinning and swirling stopped, on this sidewalk puddle. the Darren could see the reflection of skyscrapers and lights in the water. He landed next to the puddle in the form of a crow. Folding his wings, the Darren looked to the sky. It was blank and pale grey, but silver buildings rose like angular teeth along the jagged skyline.

Spying an alley between buildings, the Darren flew into it, and took on a humanoid form. In the city, the Darren found the human mystic in the greenest place: a park, where an elderly man played chess against himself. The god sat down upon the empty seat across from the man. 

"You're here," said the old mystic, without looking up from his game.

"Yes," the Darren said, "And what is it you have learned?" The energy of Doubt* was bursting forth from the god and the Darren could barely keep his desperation under control. He tried his best to keep a cool head, but Doubt* was the incarnate madness that he was afflicted with--an insatiable force with no end to its appetite.

The old man laughed, and said, "I have learned that there are some things that even a wanderer will not know, for having wandered, one will no longer know the lack of wandering." the Darren's heart sunk.

"You say I have over-sought these truths," the Darren said.

"I say that there is some knowledge which precludes all other knowledge," the old mystic replied. 

the Darren disappeared in a flash of shadow and dark feathers.

 

 


	4. Doubt and Curiosity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Darren is transformed into a mountain for many years. But what will he do when Western Faery needs him back?

Was anger on the part of a god better known as righteousness? It was these sort of questions that Doubt* devoured like a demon. Indeed, the villain could always find something else to investigate, something else to poke at, something else to keep the larger Darren from rest.

And so the Darren became like a mountain, for even though Doubt* kept him spinning, the god could keep the spinning deep within himself where it condensed into a light—a bright light of curiosity. And in that form, was the Darren relieved of Doubt*. The mountain remained still for many ages, and the Darren found that he could watch the Sun and the Moon as they spun around the world. All the stars rushed by each night, and the Darren was content, as Doubt* was contained.

“Well,” said the fairies, “We have lost our molten god to the rocks. Perhaps his Holy Mother’s earthen influence has weighed upon him too strong?” And the fairies wondered at the loss of the Darren, because he had entered a state quite like sleep or death.

“Hark!” said the fairies many years later, “What was it we ever called that hulking mass?” and they pointed at his height in the sky.

“Why,” said the other fairies in reply, “We called him in the ancient tongue ‘the Darren’ and he has never done anything since.” And indeed, the Darren had remained still as a mountain for many, many years—so many years, in fact, that no one had said his name during the interim. But now their voices called him.

“Darren! Darren! Darren!” the fairies chanted, “Let him who is righteous no longer be consumed by stone.” And, slowly, as the fairies began to pronounce his name, the Darren came back to life. It was as though he had been awakened from a deep sleep—although a sleep of eras!

Each pronunciation of the Darren’s name pulled at that compass within the god’s heart: the one which tethered him to the Other World, to the Other People, to the Otherfaith. And so the Darren awoke and while he had slept all his anger had burned away. He was burdened with brilliant Curiosity rather that Doubt’s ill.

The Darrenesque appeared again in the forest of the West, and the people bowed down at the sight. “Indeed, the phantom stag is a sign that Truth, Doubt, and Integrity have come!” And by these names the Darren was known. He hardly showed himself in glory; instead, he simply rumbled along the earth till he reached the Gate of Faery. Once in the world of the fairy spirits, the Darren was filled with a sublime joy; he had learned to contain his Doubt and had unleashed a new self—Curiosity—which gave him deep and holy purpose.

And this is how the Darren wandered the worlds, became a mountain, achieved Curiosity, and yet returned to his people a new god.


End file.
